TheRetroCritic

I review Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow for Horror Month.

After the resounding success of The Curse Of The Black Pearl , director Gore Verbinski and the original cast returned with a sequel to the Disney ride-based blockbuster franchise and it was even more successful at the box-office despite critics giving it lukewarm reviews. Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest introduced audiences to a new cursed pirate crew led by octopus-faced villain Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) and gave us more Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), which made sense at the time seeing how popular the character was. The plot is almost as straight-forward as the original film's with Jack, Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) all somehow finding themselves at sea looking for a key and a chest in order to steal Davy Jones' disembodied heart. Simple enough to grasp in a short synopsis but in practice, this sequel increasingly juggles plot threads without actually moving things forward leaving you to wonder why the plot is stagnating. T

I talk about what I enjoyed or didn't enjoy about Murder On The Orient Express .

While remaking the Oscar-winning 1974 movie adaptation of Agatha Christie's Murder On The Orient Express instead of taking a stab at less well-known Hercule Poirot story is a bit of a shame, Kenneth Branagh aims to reintroduce the Belgian sleuth to a new generation and it makes sense that he would pick this classic story. Branagh portrays Poirot himself, of course, and we first meet him in Jerusalem where he publicly solves a simple enough case before heading back to London on the Orient Express. Kenneth Branagh makes a likeable and perfectly decent Hercule Poirot, despite the occasionally mispronounced French word. He balances out the character's intelligence and ridiculousness very well. The rest of the characters are played by an all-star cast including the likes of Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Judi Dench, Daisy Ridley, Willem Dafoe and others. As the film's main victim, Depp gives maybe a bit too flashy of a performance to be completely convincing but that neve

I try a Japanese Wonka bar.

My thoughts on Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales .

Whether you like it or not, Disney is hell-bent on continuing the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise no matter what. And so here we have Dead Men Tell No Tales , a fifth instalment attempting to reconnect the series to some familiar, once discarded characters in an original way. Not so much a Jack Sparrow spin-off this time, the film sees Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites), Will Turner's (Orlando Bloom) son, set out on a lifelong quest to find the Trident Of Poseidon in order to break his father's curse. With the help of a down-and-out Jack Sparrow and accused "witch" Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario), an expert in astronomy and horology, he sets sail for the Devil's Triangle but the undead and frankly pissed-off Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem) is on their trail as he attempts to capture and kill Jack Sparrow, who once cursed him to sail the seas forever like a zombie ghost. Story-wise, this isn't too far off from the last movie which was about three different

Before Disney decided to remake all of its classic animated films in a big way, the studios turned to theme park rides for inspiration (as you do) and picked one of their oldest and most popular to adapt into a big budget feature film. And so we got Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl . The 2003 supernatural swashbuckler would, of course, become a significant success and spawn several sequels but we really didn't know what to expect from this first instalment. The pirate genre hadn't exactly been a hit in a while, if ever, so this was a risk for Disney. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Gore Verbinski, The Curse Of The Black Pearl was by no means a cheap, small scale project but the risk paid off in the end. The plot sees Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), the daughter of a wealthy Governor, help rescue young shipwrecked pirate Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) during a sail. She finds a golden medallion around his neck and decides to keep it. Ye

Review now available on the new website .

Here's the video version of my Tusk review.

Johnny Depp and Christopher Walken star in Nick Of Time , a thriller from 1995 in which a man's daughter is kidnapped and he is then forced to assassinate a politician. The film was a flop upon its release despite the lead's star power and it remains one of Depp's most forgotten efforts. The central premise is an intriguing one as we follow everyman accountant Gene (Depp) in real time as he attempts to get out of his predicament within the hour and a half time limit he's been assigned to do the job. Throughout the film, Christopher Walken's mysterious villain taunts him and watches his every move and he is genuinely intimidating. Unfortunately, this whole real time concept has been done before and since much better going as far back as Alfred Hitchcock's Rope to more recent examples including the 24 series and Phone Booth . This might explain why Nick Of Time evaporated pretty quickly as it comes off less like a theatrical blockbuster and more like a TV m

I talk a bit about Disney's new live-action sequel Alice Through The Looking Glass .

Director Robert Rodriguez concluded his El Mariachi trilogy back in 2003 with yet another ultra-violent, over-the-top actioner following Antonio Banderas' seemingly immortal mariachi-turned mythical Mexican hero. Once Upon A Time In Mexico also starred the likes of Johnny Depp, Mickey Rourke, Willem Dafoe, Eva Mendes and regulars Cheech Marin and Danny Trejo. The plot involved a planned coup whereby Dafoe's drug lord and some villainous General would take over from the President. In the middle of this whole thing is Depp's unconventional CIA agent who hires El Mariachi to do his thing, something he agrees to seeing as he has his own score to settle since his beloved Carolina (Salma Hayek) was killed. What follows is a lot of lovely guitar tunes playing over action-packed carnage: people get shot and fly 8 metres into the air, that kind of thing. Clearly the film doesn't take itself too seriously, which actually adds to the fun of it. CIA guy Sands (Depp) is cons

In this 64th episode, Adam (aka The RetroCritic) and fellow film buff Jamie discuss movie news, review  Black Mass , discuss gangsters, Batman V Superman and Star Wars . CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE Email us here if you have any questions, requests or contributions:  bigrewindpodcast@gmail.com Or simply comment below :) Oh and you can also find us on  iTunes ,  Stitcher , Soundcloud  and  Player FM  where you can subscribe to the podcast and download every episode thusfar! @TheRetroCritic #TheBigRewind retrocriticblog.blogspot.com thebigrewind.blogspot.com youtube.com/TheRetroCritic youtube.com/Cablogula

Born out of an episode of Kevin Smith's Smodcast podcast, Tusk was a story inspired by a fake ad on Gumtree in which a man was looking for someone to come and spend time with him while acting like and being dressed up as a walrus. The ad would turn out to be a prank but a truly insane/genius horror movie idea was born, an idea you can hear in the episode of Smodcast entitled "The Walrus And The Carpenter" . The film, which was released a year ago today, was not a big hit at the box-office but it helped give birth to Smith's promising Canada-set horror comedy trilogy which will include the upcoming Yoga Hosers and Moose Jaws , along with the belated sequel to Mallrats around the same time. Plus the idea that some goofy joke conversation two friends one day have in a podcast can turn into a proper movie is inspiring. The film's cast would include Justin Long, Michael Parks, Haley Joel Osment, Genesis Rodriguez and a surprise appearance by Johnny Depp, whose p

I say, old bean, isn't it frightfully late in the day for a spot of Mortdecai ? After all, the novels this new film is based on were written back in the 70's, the whole character of Charlie Mortdecai feels like an Inspector Clouseau-esque creation from the mid-60's and, regretfully, the great Terry Thomas is no longer with us. Where was Mortdecai when he would have made sense? Oh well, at least we have Johnny Depp having tons of fun with yet another cartoonish British accent and we have some form of Mortdecai movie, even if the whole retro feel I was hoping for is lost due to a current setting and some cruder jokes. By ignoring the obvious visual style appropriate to this type of film, this means it moves at a faster, more modern audience-friendly pace but it also means that Mortdecai as a character makes no sense and that there's constantly something missing from the movie. Even Catch Me If You Can had a cool 60's-style opening titles sequence! Mortdecai

Time to go Into The Woods ! And home before dark.

If you go watch Into The Woods today... You might leave with mixed feelings. Adapting Stephen Sondheim's musical to the big screen was always going to be a challenge seeing as the whole thing's like one big song sung by loads of main characters, each of them doing their own thing at the same time around a purposely convoluted plot. As the film is an hour shorter than the play, a lot of songs and plot threads were always going to get the chop and this could have easily destroyed a film with a lot of potential. Luckily, director Rob Marshall has his share of experience making movie musicals ( Chicago , Nine ) so he keeps the film afloat through succesfully capturing the essence of the stage play and getting the best out of his all-star cast. The songs are as endearing and catchy as ever from the long opening ensemble number "Prologue: Into The Woods" to the heartbreaking "Stay With Me" and the upbeat "Giants In The Sky", not to mention The Wo

After the huge disappointment that was The Lone Ranger , another quirky, make-up heavy Johnny Depp performance would have probably sent everyone running in the other direction. Thankfully, the Christopher Nolan-produced Transcendence sees the actor trying something a little bit different. The film sees poisoned and dying scientist Will (Depp) as he has his consciousness uploaded into a super-computer Lawnmower Man 2 -style and starts to show-off his new, seemingly endless, power, with shady, potentially catastrophic consequences. Add to that some confused FBI agents played by a third of the Batman Begins cast (Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy), a bunch of anti-tech terrorist rebels and Will's wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall), who finds herself at the heart of it all, and you've got yourself a pretty ludicrous sci-fi flick with all the ingredients which make up a good old B movie yet which still remains somewhat slick and A-list. The whole thing is definitely out there and that&#